A photo is making its way around Facebook of a railroad crossing and a locomotive.

The crossing light is labeled "Street Preacher" and the locomotive is labeled as "Wrath Of God".
Interestingly, this graphic is being promulgated by a group of Calvinists.

However, if that variety of soteriology is the correct interpretation, there is no point for the light to blink its warning.

For if the oncoming train represents the wrath of God, that would mean that the conductor of the train is also the one depressing the accelerator keeping the car hurdling towards the tracks since the only ones capable of stopping have been pre-selected by the conductor.

Advocates of the system respond that the purpose of the blinking light is not to save lives in the analogy but rather to glorify God.

So in essence, those holding to this viewpoint advocate a God so vain that He demands to be glorified by mangled corpses having no say in the matter.

And in some ways even worse, those hypothesizing this illustration as a model through which to comprehend cosmic truths are actually upholding a God so petty that He is not beyond deception in order to have His own ego stroked.

The light is supposedly there to warn motorists as to the danger of the oncoming train, but it ends up being a way for God to proverbially toot, or perhaps rather flash, His own horn.

Sometimes when you read what some of these deluded theologians post, you can't help but gawk in befuddlement wondering if they ponder the fanaticism of what they spew.

According to Pope Francis, atheists who perform good acts are not only exibiting the common grace bestowed by God upon all of His creation but also redeemed.

However, in regards to Protestants, towards the end of his tenure, Pope Benedict reinterated that Protestant churches aren't really churches but at best merely "ecclesiastical associations".

According to official Roman Catholic teaching, there is no salvation outside of the Church. This is symbolized by refusing the sacraments (especially the Lord's Supper) to those not on its official membership roles.

It, therefore, follows that Protestants can't be saved because they do not belong to an actual church.

Despite claiming to be the repository of the unchaning faith once delivered unto the saints and the innerant voice of Christ upon the earth, these popes are as vacilating as the Mormon god who is pretty much feeling around in the metaphysical dark really no smarter than the remainder of us finite slobs still struggling to figure things out.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The June 2013 cover story of the Atlantic Magazine is titled "What Straights Can Learn From Same Sex Couples".

For one thing, gay marriage hasn't been legalized long enough for those of that persuasion to lecture the remaining 90% plus of us as to what constitutes a lasting marriage.

The article insists gay marriages tend to be happier, more intimate, and exhibit a more equitable division of household tasks.

I guess gay marriages being so happy is why the first lesbian couple to have gotten married in Vermont has already divorced, pretty much proving all the hoopla had very little to do with actual love but was more about demanding everyone else stand around and applaud if they do not want to be condemned with the tiresome litany of "bigot", "sexist", "homophobe".

Most of the gays getting married have fewer intentions of remaining together than even the atrociously high number of heterosexual couples that violate their wedding vows.

Lastly, the claim that same sex couples do a better job of equitably dividing household chores is probably statistically manipulative as well and not really anything worthy of celebration.

By definition, lacking a partner of the opposite gender compels at least one individual in these kinds of relationships to take on tasks beyond the scope of their traditional gender role.

But since many drawn to this kind of lifestyle exhibit affectations more characteristic of the sex they are trying to mimic rather than what Providence intended anatomically, technically this is no more worthy of mention than husbands leaving the toilet seat up and wives throwing a hissy fit about it.

Media dinosaur Morley Safer has remarked on a number of occasions he would trust citizen journalism about as much as he would trust citizen surgery.

However, given the way institutionalized medicine has botched the health of numerous patients over the years, isn't there a role for the citizen to play in monitoring the healthcare industry short of full blown surgery?

Thus, in attempting to construct an analogy dismissive of the common American exercising his First Amendment rights, doesn't the aged 60 Minutes correspondent inadvertently create a justification as to why citizens utilizing Internet as an alternative to concentrated mass media is essential to the survival of the Republic itself?

Contrary to Morley Safer, why shouldn't the person believing aliens are out to get them be allowed to use advanced technology capable of presenting the arguments and evidence in a manner as visually attractive as the New York Times?

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

At a press conference, President Obama remarked that the IRS harassing the Tea Party and Patriot movements to determine if these organizations were sufficiently non partisan is "contrary to our traditions".

The President's assertion is, in fact, what's to the contrary.

These invasions of privacy could very well be the next link forged in the shackles of tyranny, but they may have more than likely been typical operating procedure for decades that may just now be coming to light.

It was for this very purpose of silencing the critics of government that Sen. Lyndon Johnson inserted into the tax code those provisions forbidding tax exempt organizations such as churches and civic associations from directly involving themselves in the specifics and technicalities of electoral politics.

These laws were not motivated by some lofty philosophical concern about safeguarding the doctrinal integrity of our nation's most esteemed institutions in the realms of religion and eleemosynary.

Rather these statutory regulations were promulgated so that crooked politicians such as Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have to be bothered by the likes of the John Birch Society.

Since the John Birch Society is essentially one of the streams from which the Tea Party movement flows, it is only natural that bureaucrats as the functionaries of the political elites would utilize the tax code in the attempt to strangle non-establishmentarian conservatism.

The IRS compelled the victimized within the Tea Party movement to not only turn over copies of their Facebook pages and blog posts but also copies of articles written about those audited along with an assortment of highly technical financial details.

Perhaps these activists should have also handed over soiled sheets of toilet paper and used condoms in the name of providing investigators the most comprehensive picture possible.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

The government is demanding that plans on how to make a gun with a 3D printer (essentially a primitive Star Trek replicator) be removed from the Internet.

Too bad the feds aren't as eager to suppress the even more destructive guides on how to produce the implements of mayhem posted on Jihadist websites.

More importantly, if the government can ban these blueprints, what is to prevent it from censoring other forms of information?

Should shop class be abolished and science education severely restricted so students don't synthesize what they've learned in chemistry, physics, and metallurgy to produce their own firearms?

Already a teacher has been reprimanded for bringing weapons to school for merely showing his second grade class run of the mill garden and household tools.

If the government is demanding that plans on how to construct a gun from a 3D printer be removed from the Internet in the name of public safety, what is to prevent these authorities from demanding websites opposing gay marriage or insisting that belief upon the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation also be removed for similar reasons?

What element is being added to the program in the climatic scene in the episode of Revolution where it alluded to that the henchman taking the elevator to a restricted level of the mysterious Tower was murdered in a particularly grizzly manner?

Will viewers learn that extraterrestrials are behind the cause of the electromagnetic blackout?

These days, in order to condition us for what lies ahead, it always comes back to the aliens, doesn't it?

If it is revealed on Revolution that powers from beyond the world are the reason for the lack of power in the world set in the series, the narrative would interestingly parallel the setting hypothesized on Falling Skies.

I realize that there has been a Doctor Who/Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover comic
book published and that the idea for the Borg was probably inspired by the Cybermen.

However, those Cybermen depicted in the episode of Doctor Who titled "Nightmare In Silver" seemed too "Borg-like".

The new assimilation technique of the nanites was reminiscent of that used in the movie Star Trek: First Contact and the way that the Cybermen were instantaneously upgrading themselves during combat conditions reminded of how you could only fire a phaser at a certain frequency a few times at the Borg before all of them would develop an immunity.

The attempt to assimilate the Doctor seemed directly inspired by Picard's transformation into Locutus.

I don't care if the episode of was written by Neil Gaiman or not.

I hope if there is ever another episode featuring the Cybermen, that these antagonists lose deeper voice and the silly turboboost.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

For generations, lemonade stands taught numerous children a variety of fundamental realities regarding the nature of the world and life beyond the confined of their particular family units. These undertakings still do.

The thing of it is, though, these lessons have very little to do with how providing a desired product along with attentive costumer service if the way to advance economically. Rather, an increasing number of young people are learning from these undertakings that the America that they will likely live the majority of their lives in (if the country does not collapse entirely) will increasingly become a nation where such blatant displays of individuality and personal achievement will be met with hostility and resistance bordering on what cannot be described as anything other than violence.

In most of these instances, the narrative unfolds something like this.

The children are informed that they cannot operate their lemonade stand because they have not obtained the proper permit from the authorities in question.

Those reading these paragraphs sequentially might be inclined to remark that the situation described above hardly classifies as a threat of violence.

Perhaps it is not directly. But what about the instance that occurred outside the U.S. Open in the neighborhood of the Congressional Country Club in the Washington, Metropolitan Area where one outlaw beverage dispenser was slapped with a $500 fine?

With the following observation, renowned economist Walter Williams would likely concur. Whenever a government imposes a fine, what the authorities are actually doing is issuing a threat against the alleged violators of some regulation concocted by any number of state agencies.

If you don't think violence or perhaps rather force (for those that somehow think verbal precision is going to somehow magically protect you from being hauled off to some detention camp or deflect bullets like Superman once the gunfire starts), won't be used against the cited party should they refuse to desist or not pay the fine you have been drinking something far stronger than dixie cup lemonade.

Perhaps the greatest lesson those crushed by the prerogatives of the state in this fashion learn is to never look within themselves to what it takes to get ahead or to do anything that sets themselves apart from the more docile members of the COMMUNITY.

Tis better, in the eyes of the statist, for the individual to accept and embrace the meager pittance and station bestowed upon you by those that have been deemed more qualified than yourself to determine your place for you in the socioeconomic order.

The purpose of these enforcement actions is to rid our nation from such independently inclined riffraff. After all, there are even now so-called "Christians" insisting that what is wrong with the cinematic Western as epitomized by John Wayne and the Cartwrights is not so much gun play but rather that such figures dared to take it upon themselves as individuals or as independent families to do what needed to be done without consultation with the COMMUNITY.

Those observing (especially the young) learn how the regulation is cast is even more important than the regulation itself.

For example, in one case in Georgia, a local police chief justified the disbandment of one particularly notorious lemonade distribution ring composed primarily of adolescent girls on the grounds that the state did not know what was in the distributed concoction.

Unless there is some actionable intelligence that we mere subjects are not privy to, there hasn't been too many Al Qaeda plots intending to disseminate poisoned lemonade through speakeasies operated by juvenile revolutionary jihadists. And even if one stretches back to the old concerns about Halloween delectables being laced with razor blades and the like, most of those accounts were blown all out of proportion by ministers attempting to frighten parents into keeping their children locked inside on that particular autumnal evening.

The next lesson learned is that certain excuses can be invoked in order to perhaps sway popular and bureaucratic opinion as to why the children in question should be allowed to flout the disputed law or regulation. It seems some reasons are some how more noble than others.

For example, in the instance of the youngsters threatened outside the golf course in suburban Maryland, the response in the press was that these youngsters were trying to raise money for charity. But what if the funds were not being raised for that purpose?

Is there something inherently wrong about keeping money for yourself? In exposing the false altruism scandal and other related efforts to squash individuality, Ayn Rand asked what is so bad about individuals attempting to provide for themselves.

On social networks, posters commenting on the issue have gone so far as to remark how dare the media even report on these cases since the accounts cast law enforcement in a negative light because the law must be enforced at all costs because the law is the law. Though American police departments and agencies have not yet deteriorated to the particular level about to be mentioned, it must be pointed out that the Gestapo and the KGB enforced what was considered law in their respective regimes as well.

So-called "conservatives" seem to have no problem whatsoever directing criticism at any assortment of other government agencies. So are they so dimwitted as to lose sight of the higher goal of human liberty when they are distracted by a shiny badge?

Just because a government has enacted a law regarding something, does that mean the temporal statute contramanding the laws of God must be obeyed in all instances? If so, does that mean the family of Corrie Ten Boom got what they deserved? After all, the law is the law.

Some might recoil at the idea of comparing the closing of a bootleg lemonade distillery with some of the greatest crimes in human history as one sheol of a conceptual leap. However, where do you think the framework is laid to get a people once marked by the common sense that flows from natural law to commit deeds that would only be approved by the most warped of consciences?

For, if a people lack the courage to stand for the right of a child to have a lemonade stand, do you think they will muster the courage to speak out regarding more profound incidents when those in power start aiming guns at heads in order to implement their transformative agendas?

Because of my failure to rend my garments in lamentation over the failure to find a suitable burial plot for the Boston Marathon Bomber, I have been accused of expelling liquid bodily wastes upon the memory of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel.

The Biblical narratives regarding these young Hebrews have nothing to do whatsoever about lavishing accolades and honors upon terrorists out to kill unsuspecting bystanders and destroy the American way of life.

These accounts are primarily historical in nature detailing the particular circumstances of ancient Israel.

Unless one can book God on “The O’Reilly Factor” or Wolf Blitzer, one cannot have an as definitive statement to the press as to why something transpired in America on the cosmic level.

Couldn’t the testing of Job be just as accurate an analogy on the national level?

These accounts can have a secondary purpose of inspiration.

But the lesson to take away is quite different than that assumed by the original critic spewing the initial allegation at me who despises America to such an extent that he felt it necessary to proudly announce his refusal to salute the nation’s flag or exhibit patriotic sympathies.

The story actually serves as an argument as to why sincere believers can actually hold positions of authority in an otherwise pagan government so long as they are careful not to compromise their fundamental convictions.